A Method for the Determination of Non-ceruloplasmin-bound Copper in Blood Serum and Some of Its Applications

Abstract

<p>Methods have been developed to analyse for the non ceruloplasmin-bound copper and total copper in human blood serum accurately and precisely. The former was firstly isolated from the serum by using Chelex 100 resin. Both the non-ceruloplasmin-bound copper and the total copper were determined by neturon activation analysis, atomic absorption spectroscopy and a spectrophotometric method using zinc dibenzyldithiocarbamate as the chelating agent. Then the concentration of the ceruloplasmin-bound copper could be calculated by the difference. In vitro and in vivo radioisotopic labelling techniques were used in establishing the methods. Then they were applied to analyse the blood sera from some Caucasians, Chinese and a person with glomerulonephritis. The variations of the copper concentration as a function of time of one Chinese volunteer were also studied.</p>